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Consumer Protection

PROTECTING CONSUMER SAFETY—Toys should not be toxic or dangerous for children to play with. Our food should not make us sick. The terms for banking and credit accounts should be clear and easy to understand.

LOOKING OUT FOR CONSUMERS

Travel Buddy’s consumer program works to alert the public to hidden dangers and scams and to ban anti-consumer practices and unsafe products.

TROUBLE IN TOYLAND

For 30 years, Travel Buddy’s "Trouble In Toyland" report has surveyed store shelves and identified choking hazards, noise hazards and other dangers. Our report has led to at least 150 recalls and other regulatory actions over the years.

BIGGER BANKS, BIGGER FEES

In April, Travel Buddy released a report in which we surveyed more than 350 bank branches and revealed that fewer than half of branches obeyed their legal duty to fully disclose fees to prospective customers, while one in four provided no fee information at all. We also found that despite widespread stories about the “death” of free checking, free and low-cost checking choices are still widely available, if consumers shop around.

Issue updates

Today, in his column "," Joe Nocera of the New York Times pays a visit to the PIRG-backed , where he finds vision, idealism and people working to show that "government can make a difference in people’s lives."

I've got a new column at Huffington Post, "" I discuss President Kennedy's visionary "Special Message to the Congress on Protecting the Consumer Interest" announced on March 15, 1962. He declared that consumers have rights and government should protect them. Read the full column after the jump.

After House passage of the mislabeled Jobs Act, action shifts to to the Senate in a misguided, bi-partisan effort to weaken investor protection laws. SF Chronicle financial columnist and the both rip the idea. While Congress appears trapped in a zombie-like fugue state, pretend zombies led by Iowa PIRG ( marched against nuclear power this weekend. All this and more consumer news of the week, in case you missed it.

A misnamed package of legislation to weaken investor protection laws -- -- is speeding through the House this week. While some Senators are for parts of the package, the Senate is taking a closer look at whether rolling back the enacted after the Enron and related accounting scandals is really the way to go.